Wednesday 23 December 2009

Weather forcast wrong again..thank you...


Little bit snow forcast 9pm Tuesday evening they said.
Ha! today Wednesday the country (well here in Scotland-England had already..) ground to a halt in deep drifting snow. It had been -16 Celcius in parts of Perthshire (right in the middle of scotland-lower highlands)...
First i knew about it was my workmate phoned from up in edinburgh at 6.15am "dude, you wana see the snow here!" , i looked out and it was all white..proper white!
 "see you next week" he said, it was around 6-8" here but there was a wind so would maybe drift a bit.
The road looked ok, only a few fresh tracks. The pugsley was in the kitchen waiting to go and i left early at 7am to ride my offroad commute to work.

I am really sorry fuzzy (see last post comments) i had a hoot!
Always good to be first in fresh snow as i took the back road leading onto the John Muir Way...


On the trail it was starting to drift where exposed passing gates etc. I was on low gears so i just kept moving while my boots punched through the drifts...


On the right of way over between fields to work the drifts were so deep i had to walk. It was quite hard going being knee deep and the front end sometimes wanting to dig in, it was only a few hundred yards though.
The downside to owning a pug is you always get to work!, at work news on the radio said the A1 was closed between Dunbar and Haddington here in East Lothian. I went and dug out the entrance drive to the clubhouse with the compact tractor, it was a wild drive through the golf course, wind swirling snow around and in the dark quite wild feeling.
Oh did i add the tractor dosnt have a cab!, i had my jacket and leggings on top of cycling ones so was toasty, with only a bucket on the tractors front loader it took 2 hours!, would take 10 minutes with a plough on the front but the bucket scrapes it right to the tarmac and once done the salt already there from yesterday soon worked again. Before heading home i went for some pics up on the hill. By now the wind had blown the snow off the mounds and high tops into bunkers and dips...



Then i managed to bury the Gator in a drift, doh!!, took a few minutes to did it out...


Riding home heres the same place i took a pic yesterday. Snow was thawing now but alot deeper, up to the BB of the bike...


Unplouged and gritted minor roads were now hardpack, this is great to cycle on...


Returning along the John Muir Way to near home i just followed my tracks...



And was greeted by this fellow in the square outside my house, i added a hat and tartan scarf (my clan tartan Mathieson)...

2 comments:

  1. Is this kind of snowfall normal in Scotland?

    Our snow should be starting in a few hours. We have a blizzard warning. When it's all done in 48 hours, we should have as much as 2 feet of snow.

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  2. hi doug,
    i think it like this alot was years ago..victorian times to the 1960s...we had proper cold winters that lasted weeks but since the 70s only the odd year here in se scotland..,usually good snow up north in the highlands where theres ski lifts..,they had a few years lately with not much..
    this winter puts a new twist on the "climate change " theory!

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